Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Productive Procrastination

I started to wind on the curtain warp, but I think I've done something wrong! The design part, the colors, aren't supposed to take up so much space. I'm not sure what I did wrong, but I'm sure it will come to me if I leave it alone for a while. I also think I'm going to have trouble splitting up the purple and green to distribute them in the design, but as Scarlet O'Hara said, I'll think about that tomorrow!

And you can see that I have the white on one set of lease sticks and the colors on another. I'm not at all sure that will work! But I don't have a supplementary beam on this loom, and hate the idea of hanging a bunch of stuff off the back of the loom to weight the colors differently. We'll see...
Since I can't be idle, and I had most of yesterday slated to wind that warp, and I couldn't find any other project I wanted to work on and I'm thinking of making some cute pajamas and I have 1000 pounds--slight exaggeration, but only slight--of bamboo thread, I started knitting some lace inserts for sleeves or hems on those pajamas.

I knitted lace two Christmas's ago to edge pillow cases for gifts. I've shown a photo of them before on this a couple of months ago, the post called Tedium. I loved knitting that lace, though it is incredibly hard on the hands. The needles are so thin, wires, really, and sometimes quite slick. It's difficult sometimes to get them to pull two stitches, or worse, three, through a loop, which is something one needs to do often to make lace.
The bamboo thread isn't as slinky as I though it'd be; in fact, it's kind of rough and lumpy! I thought it would be much smoother, and finer, too. But it's okay, I think. I think it'll look pretty on a nightgown hem. And I'm hoping it'll soften in the wash.

And you can probably see that I've made an error, three motifs in. I suddenly had one too few stitches, about 8 rows into the design, and kept trying to fix it. Well, it didn't fix, but I figured I'm going to be cutting it up to fit hems, anyway, so I'll cut that part out. Ripping out lace is not for the faint of heart, because picking the stitches back up NEVER works!

The book I'm using, Barbara Abbey's Knitting Lace, is a great book for learning how to knit lace. The first third of the book is how to, the meat of the book being patterns. If you embiggen (thanks, Stephanie Pearl McPhee, for that technical term!) the photo of the lace on the book, you'll be able to see that the patterns are written in symbols and numbers, which at first is confusing, but it's just like learning a simple language, and you'll memorize it quickly. Unfortunately, I can't get the photos to rotate correctly, so you'll have to tilt you head to read it!
They're great portable projects, too, unless the cone is too fat for a purse. The only drawback to knitting lace while waiting for an appointment is that it's difficult to just put it down anywhere. That's why I have a floating post it, to follow the line. If interrupted, you can always say, "Wait until I finish this row!" because they're short rows and nothing is THAT important that it can't wait for the end of the row, is it?

3 comments:

I'm not sure I can be much help with your warp, but I pretty sure you can just hang one or two things( jugs maybe) off the back beam for the supplemental warp.I never would have thought of doing a second set of lease sticks!Hats off on the lace knitting. Even with mistakes it looks pretty darn lacey and should be lovely on the PJ's.

I find it amazing how many ways a person can make lace! Your knitted lace is beautiful!!! My Grandmother kept "patterns" of crochet lace in her sewing basket, which were little snippets of a pattern that she could copy. I love seeing knitting needles hanging out of purses...it makes such a statement!

I love the knitted lace. It reminds me of the crocheted or knitted doilies that our grandmothers would put on the headrest of chairs or on tables. They were done in fine string like yarn. I have some my mother did. They were once white, but not any more.Good luck on your warp.